Sunday, November 23, 2014

I received this email with subject line "Embracing Menstruating Vaginas":

This is my bleeding vagina.

Just like any other woman.

Every month we go through our menstrual cycles, and we bleed.

It took me time to be comfortable with showing my partner my menstruating vagina, but now that I have broken that barrier, I am free. I used to have my doubts and discretions, and possibly thought that this is something unattractive that needs to be hidden, but now I understand that It is a beautiful part of life.

it is not disgusting.

it is not unsanitary.

it is not to be hidden.

There is nothing to be ashamed of.

It is a woman's personal choice whether she would like to be more or less sexually active during her period, there is no judgement in abstaining, there is no judgement in participating either. Orgasms help with cramping and de-stressing, also it is empowering to be able to feel attractive during a state that is stigmatised by society and religion as "dirty".

Vaginas are beautiful, and bleeding is normal.

Embrace the female anatomy, men (and some women). Do not be intimidated by nature.

From my speech in Växjö konsthall:"My mother talked to me about my body on several occasions, she told me about periods to stop me from asking what are pads used for in front of people. She told me that it would be a scandal if someone saw a blood stain on my clothes … That I should hide my periods as I should hide my naked body. After I got my period, I was shocked by the way I was sexualized and was expected to act. I was expected to be less playful but I missed jumping around without feeling every atom in my body as a frame around me. I had to lock myself in the bathroom for long periods of time to avoid my father seeing me with a pad in hands. Some sellers hid pads in paper and black plastic bags as if they were illegal."------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Islam forbids women from praying, fasting or touching quran while on their periods because it considers menstruating women impure.http://islamqa.info/en/70438

Why nudity? I was asked
this question a trillion times by media,
but my answers were never published as they are. Today, is the first
time I will answer it without passing through somebody else’s
filter … Without having somebody skew my
words to pass them with his/her
sexist, conformist or culture relativist agenda.

What
are we protesting against? I believe the answer to this question is
not hard to find, but I’ll answer it. I’ll tell you my own story
with abuse directed at my body, which is just the average story of
any Egyptian woman.

I remember how angry my
father’s facewas on that day. I
was 11. We were getting ready to go to the club, and I was bouncing
around him with excitement, especially that I neverwent out but with my parents, and they
didn’t go out much, when I noticed the anger in his eyes as he
looked at me. I wondered why is he angry this time till he yelled to
my mother about how all my back was showing from the top I was
wearing and refused to let me go out unless I
change. Since my childhood, I wasn’t a person who accepts whatever
she is told, especially what I found unjust
or humiliating, so I resisted changing my top at first, then argued
with my parents about it all day. They told
me that I should cover up, or men will rape me and say I was naked in
front of them … That I’ll have to cover
up more as I get older … That we were
Muslims, and Muslim women should wear hijab since they get their
period, or at least cover parts of their bodies like their backs.
They pointed at other girls at the club and asked me “Do you see
any other girl dressing as you do?” and told me that I should adapt
to the society I live in. All of this outraged me and didn’t make
sense for me. I didn’t totally understand
what rape was at this age, but I told them no one has the right to
hurt me no matter what I wear, because I’m not a product made for
someone else to consume, I a person who has
a will … That it didn’t make sense to me to do something or
refrain fromdoing
something just to do like other people …
That I didn’t choose to be a Muslim and I wished I weren’t one.
This was the beginning of body policing that
continued for about a decade after.

Some years earlier,
I went alone with my father to the beach. There
was no one else but him to shower me after I swam in the sea, but
since I was taught the no one should see me naked, especially not a
man, I was embarrassed to undress in front of him. When I did, he
cupped my breasts and said “What are you hiding? You don’t have
breasts to hide.” I felt uncomfortable,
so I refused to let him shower me again,
and wore a wet swimming suit all the way
from Ismealia to Cairo. When my mother asked me why I didn’t shower
and change, I told her what happened. She said he shouldn’t have
done that, and she’s gonna talk to him about it, only to call me
a liar who made this story up to get
my parents divorced a few hours later.

In primary school,
teachers started telling me not to fight boys back when they bully
me, or they will touch my body … To wear a
longer skirt, or at least wear shorts under my skirt. Girls were
focred to wear vests or jackets in 40+ degrees to cover their growing
breasts, while boys could wear only t-shirts. Teachers were
telling us that women who don’t wear hijab will get hanged by their
hairs in hell. In religion exams, I had to
write that women should only work at jobs that “fit them”, dress
“modestly” and have limited
contact with their male colleagues or loose
marks. I chose to loose marks. There was a very
religious teacher who made me stand up for
a whole lecture after he saw me fighting with a boy who bullied me at
break time. The boy mimicked female voice and commented
on my gender, and the teacher told me a girl my age shouldn’t
mix with boys like that. The same teacher touched
10 and 11 years old girls.

Before I
started in middle school, my father told me I should have the
least possible contact with boys and not take them as friends
or enemies, or again, they will touch my body.

My mother
talked to me about my body on
several occasions, she told me about periods to stop me from
asking what are pads used for in front of people. She told me that it
would be a scandal if someone saw a blood stain on my clothes …
That I should hide my periods as I should hide my naked body. After
I got my period, I was shocked by the way I was sexualized and was
expected to act. I was expected to be less playful but I missed
jumping around without feeling every atom in my body as a frame
around me. I had to lock myself in the bathroom for long periods of
time to avoid my father seeing me with a pad in hands. Some sellers
hid pads in paper and black plastic bags as
if they were illegal. My mother also told me about sexual
harassment. She told me it was normal to start at my teens, and that
respectful girls don’t react to it. She
told me about sex before I know about it from another source … That
I shouldn’t have sex before marriage … That it would show
on my body if I did … That I should preserve my virginity …
That I shouldn’t let a boy fool me into having sex with him,
denying that girls can want sex too to make
them into sex tools used by men. She said that governmental campaigns
against female genital mutilation were a waste of tax money … That
women who got circumcised didn’t loose anything, because she thinks
women have no right to sexual desire … Because
women who don’t act asexual are considered nymphomaniac by men who
spend most of their time watching porn.

What my parents
feared the most happened when I was in middle school. I had a crush
on someone, I hugged him and decided to tell him about my feelings,
so they informed school. They told me they would never let me out
alone.I overheard them planning to pick me
up on time everyday, so I don’t get a
chance to go out with him, fearing that I would have sex, and I was
shocked when they justified why people didn’t send girls to schools
in the old days, so they don’t meet men, and do as I did. When they
knew I sent him a love letter, my father dragged me by the hair half
the way from school to home, aspassers-by
were watching.

I can still picture myself in the bathroom,
thinking about my changing genitals that I
didn’t know how they looked, and wishing people didn’t have sex
organs, so that I could go out, join activities and have romantic
relationships.

I had two other boyfriends later, but my
parents didn’t know about them. I learned not to keep a diary, to
leave nothing for them to find when they search my belongings, to
change my schedule so that I could meet someone or
do something between lectures. I first had sex about a week
before my 18th birthday, and it felt victorious to walk
around without the tissue whichthey
deprived me from having a life to make sure it
stays intact between my legs. I planned to confront them after
I graduate from college ... To rent a place
and live independently despite society’s prohibitions.
I couldn’t imagine myself living all my
life under the control of my father then under the control of a
husband he would choose for me, and asking for permission every time
I walk out of the door, but it psychologically tormented me to do
stuff in secret when I believed that nobody had a right to my time,
body or mind. I had a lot of fights with my
parentswho called me crazy for
things like objecting to marrying girls to their rapists to prove
that they “lost their virginity” through marriage, but I hid my
things like my friendships because I had no power
to prevent them from taking them away from me.

I had a
bacterial infection, but I didn’t know what I
had. It could be anything from yeast infection to cancer. Both
the gynecologist I visited and my parents said a gynecological exam
shouldn’t be performed on me because I was assumed to be a virgin,
so I remained sick for years, and knew that my virginity is more
valuable for them than my health or
even my life. I told my mother I would remove the virginity
myself, because I’m not a tomato sauce bottle which lid shouldn’t
be opened before someone buys it, and that lid shouldn’t be
more important than my health. She got terrified and said “did
you loose your mind?”.

I couldn’t take it anymore, when I
was 19, when they found out from relatives who had
been monitoring me about a new relationship that I announced on
facebook, and saw that I liked pages about women’s right to have
sex before marriage and remove their hymens. I confronted them with
that I wouldn’t leave my boyfriend or
marry him or let them see him and decide
whether I continue with him or not. They locked me up, hit me, called
me a stupid prostitute who wants to do it for free and they would’ve
performed a virginity test on me if I didn’t defend myself with a
knife. They highly suspected
I had sex with him because ”what else would he do with me for 4
hours I went out with him”. I was 19 and he was 27, but they
said I was a child and he was molesting me … That
they would ask police to
check my virginity and get them “their right in my body”
from him, because for them sex is something that men use women for,
not something that women and men do together, and I am
a body they own. I could escape after a week. The day of my escape
was the day I started living and making my
own choices. It was the happiest day of my life.

Sexual
Harassment

If a person who
understands Arabic walked in Egyptian streets, she/he would notice
how a big percentage of people’s conversations are about women’s
bodies: How they don’t cover them enough … How some woman’s arm
is showing … They would hear mothers telling their sad daughters
they can’t buy most of the outfits they like because they show much
skin, and veiled women asking every 5 minutes if their hairline is
showing. Women are told to cover up not to arouse men, which
strengthens the idea that women are guilty for being born women. It’s
no surprise that the more women cover up in a country, the more
frequent and violent sexual harassment is there.

I got
sexually harassed tens of times daily,
which still gives me nightmares, but I only
have time to mention a few incidents here. When I was a small child,
another small child kept touching my ass in a market. I pointed at
him to my parents, but they said it was normal and my father should
walk behind me to prevent it. In middle school, I was sitting next to
a boy when he groped my breast in front of a teacher who told me to
stop when I yelled at the boy. Another time,
another boy verbally harassed me, and another teacher told me I
should wear looser shirts. More frequent were the insulting
comments ... “What are you wearing,
slut?” … “I saw your ass.” … “I
wanna fuck you.” … “Hey,
stupid gal!” ... “Can I pop this plastic bag in your face?.” …
They commented when I dressed the way I like, when I wore school
uniform, when I laughed, when I ate ice-cream, when I looked sick,
when I looked angry, when I ran, when I had any body posture other
than keeping my legs tight, arching my back and looking at the ground
… and my mother tried so hard to teach me
to change the way I do everything to avoid
their harassment … To be aware of my body all the time. She yelled
at me when boys harassed me and I didn’t notice, and
wanted me to do like most other girls who ran away of
harassment in fear of getting raped, and refused
to walk with me when I wore mini-skirts. They feared rape
because they thought they would have no future if they became
non-virgin and couldn’t marry, but I refused to let society define
my value for me and put it in my virginity and reputation of being a
submissive woman. I found pride in showing that I reject their
morals, and my anger was stronger than my fear. I fought back, and
felt bad about myself every time I froze. I
spoke up, which my parents didn’t like. My father once heated a
knife and threatened to cut my tongue. He said all he wanted was for
me to be silent. Speaking up was punishable
by rape. He said neighbors would rape me if they heard my voice.

When
I complained to my mother about harassment, she said she would talk
to my father about it. My father said “Do
you want to report it to police every time a man says something to
you or touches you?”... “You are lying” …”
You’re dirty for thinking about your body
and repeating what they tell you” … “Those
harassers will teach you the manners I failed to teach you” ...
The same man who screamed “my honor” when I hugged a guy I liked
said I had a complex and even girls in western
countries laughed when a stranger hit them on their asses when I got
touched WITHOUT MY CONSENT. The more I got harassed the more my
parents limited me, so I didn’t tell them when I was harassed and
attacked with a knife by two men while walking and shopping. A man
who witnessed the incident insisted that I shouldn’t walk alone in
an empty street after sunset. What hurt more than the harassment
itself, was the re-victimization by other people, especially by my
family. I was aware of how sexual harassment and rape are used to
suppress woman … To make them think about avoiding rape every time
the attempt to do something … To reduce them into sexual preys …
When I said that to my mother she suggested sarcastically ”Go out
naked and tell them here I am.”

Well, that was a good idea.
When I was 18, I could dance with ease for the first time, and when I
was 19, in my parent’s home, I closed my room’s door, wore
forbidden items in a forbidden color: red gypsy flower, red shoes and
floral stockings and my naked body. They are forbidden because they
attract attention … They express individuality, when an individual,
especially a woman, is supposed to hide any sign of an own identity …
They show that I’m not ashamed of my body, and I refuse to carry
the guilt of an alleged original sin. I took a photo and posted it on
my blog later on 23 October 2011.

Now I’ll ask myself the
same questions I get asked frequently and answer them:

Why
don’t you protest in another way?

I did other things before I
posted the nude photo and I continue doing them after I posted it. I
was criticized for writing openly about my views, posting photos
of myself wearing unacceptable clothes,
photos with my boyfriend or
creative photos a girl is not supposed to take of herself.but there’s nothing wrong with nudity.
Nudity is used in art to express different things. In my photo, I
express my defiance for the view that a female body is a commodity to
be owned and controlled, so I don’t think I lowered my price by
making a photo of my body available for free. Also, ”an action is
stronger than a thousand words”, and a photo of
a woman disobeying the idea that women are less intelligent sex
commodities that exist for men is stronger
than texts demanding bodily anatomy for women.

Do you think
deviating that much from society’s norms can change it?

What
else can change it? Refraining from disobeying or questioning the
norms we want to change? Those who ask this question ask it because
they would choose safety and social acceptance over freedom, but I
prefer to be rejected for what I am, rather than be accepted for what
I would be ashamed to be.

What reactions did you receive after
publishing the photo?

I got both negative and positive reactions:
Many controlling psychos felt threatened when a woman didn’t care
to try to get society to view her as a respectful submissive woman,
but got out of the system despite of all the pressure on women. I was
cyber-bullied, legally prosecuted, threatened with death and rape,
attacked several times in the street and kidnapped by two men and
three women for the photo and for other things like leaving my
father’s house and having a boyfriend. One
of my kidnappers thought the only reason I resisted rape was that I
wasn’t the right girl and I was a virgin protecting her virginity.
Many sexists assumed that a man made me do
it, because in their view, a woman cannot have enough agency to react
this strongly. I also got support from many people world wide, but
the messages I got from other Arab girls who shared their stories
with me and made me know that I showed them it’s possible to be
free meant the most for me.

Do you regret it? Why don’t you
just change your name and live a normal life?

This question
implies that my reaction is the problem, but what I’m reacting to
and tolerating it is. I don’t regret it, and I would do it again,
and again, and again.